Who knows?

If no breeze and no wave were to kiss them?

Who knows?"

As I sang, the lady listen'd,

Silent save one gentle sigh:
When I ceased, a tear-drop glisten'd
On the dark fringe of her eye.

Up I sprang.

What words were utter'd

Bootless now to think or tell,

Tongues speak wild when hearts are flutter'd
By the mighty master-spell.

"Magdalena, dearest, hear me,"

Sigh'd I, as I seized her hand; "Hola! Señor," very near me,

Cries a voice of stern command.

And a stalwart caballero

Comes upon me with a stride,
On his head a slouch'd sombrero,
A toledo by his side.

"Will your Worship have the goodness
To release that lady's hand?"
"Señor," I replied, "this rudeness
I am not prepared to stand."

Then the Spanish caballero

Bow'd with haughty courtesy,

Solemn as a tragic hero,

And announced himself to me:

"Señor, I am Don Camillo
Guzman Miguel Pedrillo
De Xymenes y Ribera

Y Santallos y Herrera
Y de Rivas y Mendoza

Y Quintana y de Rosa

Y Zorilla y"—"No more, sir;

'Tis as good as twenty score, sir,”
Said I to him, with a frown:
"Mucha bulla para nada,
No palabras, draw your 'spada;
If you're up for a duello

You will find I'm just your fellow,-
Senior, I am Peter Brown!"

By the river's bank that night,
Foot to foot in strife,

Fought we in the dubious light
A fight of death or life.
Don Camillo slash'd my shoulder;
With the pain I grew the bolder,

Close and closer still I press'd:

Fortune favour'd me at last;

I broke his guard, my weapon pass'd: Through the caballero's breast:

The man of many names went down, Pierced by the sword of Peter Brown!

With the bleeding from his wound.
If he be living still, or dead,

I never knew, I ne'er shall know. That night from Spain in haste I fled, Years and years ago.

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells,
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Hear the mellow wedding-bells,

golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

Through the balmy air of night

How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

On the moon!

O, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells! how it dwells

On the Future! how it tells

Of the rapture that impels

To the swinging and the ringing

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells,

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

Hear the loud alarum bells,
What a tale of terror, now,

- brazen bells!
their turbulency tells!

In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,

In a clamourous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavour,

How they clang, and clash, and roar !
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,

By the twanging and the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling and the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells, —

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells,

In the clamour and the clangour of the bells!

Hear the tolling of the bells, - iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

Is a groan.

And the people, ah, the people,-
They that dwell up in the steeple,

All alone,

And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone!
They are neither man nor woman,
They are neither brute nor human,
They are Ghouls :

And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,
A pæan from the bells!

And his merry bosom swells

With the pean of the bells!
And he dances and he yells ;
Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tolling of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

BUGLE SONG.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

THE splendour falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story; The long light shakes across the lakes,

And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.